Wellness products and services are increasingly popular, particularly in developed countries. Many are rooted in the traditional medicine, e.g. body care products, natural medicines, massage, acupuncture, sauna, spa treatments. New products and services include handheld devices for vital sign measurements, tests for ‘good’ or ‘bad’ metabolites such as antioxidants or cholesterol, and treatments such as cold laser or hyperbaric oxygen. Wellness products and services are sold at retail stores, walk-in clinics, integrative medicine facilities, health spas and gyms and through electronic healthcare companies that also provide integrated wellness services. Wellness products and services are typically selected using generalized recommendations (e.g. age and gender based), subjective tests such as health questionnaires and the pain scale, vital signs (blood pressure), weight and metabolite tests (e.g. cholesterol or glucose). New test are needed for personalized assessment of health, identification of the need for wellness products and selecting the best match for the personal need. Optimally, new tests will provide an early warning of a health problem and indicate the nature of the problem. In addition, new tests showing specific health benefits of wellness products and services are needed, in addition to the available anti-oxidant tests for nutritional supplements.
There is an urgent need for a new health test suitable for point-of-care (POC) settings. The test should be noninvasive and capable of detecting early signs of deteriorating health status. To be POC-expedient, the test should be rapid, technically simple and inexpensive.